The Visitor
by starboarder
Summary: Five years into their marriage, Jane and Edward receive a visit from an unexpected guest, who shows them just how tenuous their grasp on happiness is. NOW COMPLETE!
1. Part 1: Showers and Gleams

_We hold within us – each of us – an ever-regenerating capacity for awe at darkness, and it is never too late for the specters of our past to rise up before us, like vampires in the night, and seek once more to suck from us what happiness we have managed to find in their absence. No amount of time can ease the shock of their reappearance in our lives, nor lessen the pain they bring us. This I know to be true._

"Adam! Leave poor old Pilot be, and come here. I've something for you."  
"What is it?"

"Such skepticism! Come and see. Look, my boy, this is very special."

"A flower?"

"And not just any flower. Do you know, if a fairy happened upon this, she could turn it to a sovereign? Yes, it's true! Here, you may take it, but I want you to handle it very carefully, you understand? Yes, that's it. Now go on and take it over to Mamma."  
"Why?"

"Because that is the proper etiquette for a gentleman to follow when he presents himself to a fairy. If you have no gift for her, she will be cross."  
"Mamma is a _fairy_?"  
"Why of course!"

It was the height of summer, but a stormy, capricious one, with apparently little liking for sunshine. Today, however, the morning downpour had broken off by noon, and the rain-weary Rochester's were at last at liberty to go out of doors. Droplets of water still shimmered on leaves and glinted on the blades of grass in the lawn behind Ferndean, but the sun had come out and shone warmly down on them, as if anxious to atone for its long absence. A quarter past three in the afternoon. The remnants of a fine tea lay abandoned on a lawn table, beside which sat Jane with her drawing materials, her sketchbook open before her on an easel. For some time Edward and Adam had busied themselves looking for rare plant and insect specimens, the child's keen and careful eyes more than making up for the dimness of his father's own vision. Pilot had ambled along after them at first before returning to the center of lawn – the driest, warmest patch, apparently – to curl up and doze in the rare sunlight. Adam, who never liked to be apart from the old dog if he could help it, had returned as well to pester him awake when his father had summoned him.

The flower was a rare specimen indeed – silvery-white, with pointed petals like the arms of a star – and Edward had rejoiced inwardly at finding it. Before Adam's birth, in the days when he had been without his sight, he remembered Jane coming upon the blooms on their walks. She had gathered them with cries of delight (always she was drawn to the small, the pale, the delicate, the overlooked), had described to him their simple beauty, had taken his index finger to trace the flower's star-like shape. He had known what it looked like without ever having seen it. Yet finding it now, on his own, filled him with a boyish sense of excitement. He would have Adam take it to Jane. It would be a special surprise for her and might, he hoped, chase away whatever spirit had come to trouble her.

For the past fortnight there had been something unusually reserved in Jane's manner. She had not been taciturn, nor even particularly despondent, but she'd been slower to smile, still more reticent to laugh, and there had been moments when he'd come upon her – doing some ordinary task like sewing or reading – and found a strange depth in her eyes, a peculiar expression of longing, something akin to the innate desperation of a long-abandoned child who knows only what it is to be lost. He did not want to press her for explanations, and he guessed that her wistfulness might well have its foundation in the Northern journey they'd taken, but he felt it deeply when she was not herself. As he waited for his son to come to him, Edward carefully fingered the precious cluster of flowers, determined to pick out the single finest, most delicate bloom.

_You are not lost, not alone, my darling; I have found you. Every night in dreams I find you. Every blessed morning I awake at your side, I find you. Every time I look at our child, I find you. _

Adam's sudden presence beside him broke his reverie. He revealed to the boy his discovery, answering the childish questions with the good-humored, bantering manner he'd adopted with his son. He had resolved, three years ago when the boy was born, that he would be a different sort of father to Adam than his own had been to him. Unlike his father, whose family had been but a means to an end – securing the enduring legacy of Thornfield Hall – Edward's family was the long-awaited end to the labyrinthine path of his youth. His wife and son were his entire world.

All the while, Jane watched them in mute fondness, but, as he'd suspected she might, directly after his confirmation of her otherworldly nature, she voiced an interjection. She was not his impish mind-reader for nothing.

"Edward, what are you telling him?" Jane called, one eyebrow raised reprovingly. Her husband's answering smile was innocence itself, but a warm flush of relief at this return of her old humor spread through him he leaned to whisper conspiratorially in his son's ear.

"Go on, lad!"

The boy skipped over to Jane with the flower held up proudly in front of him, mouth curved in a grin to match his father's. When he reached her chair he dropped it obligingly into her lap, then turned back to glance at Edward for approval. Edward winked his good eye, and Adam, who knew now that he had fulfilled his errand properly, chortled in success and watched his mother's reaction. She took the flower from her lap – recognizing the love token for what it was – and inhaled its fragrance.

"Thank you, my love!" She bent to kiss Adam on top of his dark curls and obligingly tucked the flower into one of her winding braids.

"Does that look well, do you think?" Adam nodded solemnly.

"Fairy money."

"Really?" She smiled. "And whatever should I need fairy money for?"

"_You_ are a fairy, Mamma!" Jane laughed at this and began tickling Adam under his chin.

"And _you_ are a very silly boy." He squirmed and squealed, delighted with the fond slight to his judgment. Then she drew him into her arms and set him on her knee.

"Your father put you up to it, I'll be bound," she said, looking up and catching Edward's eye. "He's bad enough to spout such nonsense himself without teaching it to you as well."

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much," Edward declared, starting toward them. "Eh, Adam?"

Yes, the sunshine had returned to her face. She lifted her shining eyes to him as he came and stood beside her, ruffling Adam's hair and bending to place a soft kiss on Jane's lips.

"How are you, Janet?" He asked softly.

"Well, thank you Darling." She shifted Adam on her knee. "A bit warm, perhaps – do you not feel warm?"

"Are you sure you feel well?" Suddenly he was concerned. She did look rather more rosy than her pale complexion usually allowed. "You must not allow yourself to become feverish in this heat. Perhaps we ought to go in."

"Don't worry!" she assured him, reaching out to squeeze his hand. "If need be I will move into the shade, but truly, I'm well at the moment."

Edward was unconvinced.

"I'll fetch you bonnet, shall I? And dampen a handkerchief for you."

"Really, Edward, that is quite unnecessary."

"It's no trouble," he insisted. He would not allow Jane to fall ill if there was something he could do to prevent it. "I will only be a moment." Before she could voice any more objections he made for the house. Jane shook her head at him, but she smiled to herself as she did it. No other woman in the world could boast such an attentive husband, she was sure. She had only to speak a word and he would brave hell and high water to carry out her request.

As she waited for her husband to return, Jane played "ride a cock horse" with Adam, bouncing him on her knee, then set him down and attempted to return to her painting. The peculiar weather that summer had not allowed her to paint much out of doors, and she knew she ought to be relishing the opportunity to do so now, but her thoughts - in particular, one image that flashed constantly before her – were too much distraction. A low, windblown tree; bleached white stones; a figure in black. And then she, turning away in horror, clutching Edward's arm like a lifeline, looking and looking at his face and wishing fervently it was all she would ever see.

The minutes passed, and when she came to herself again she realized that dark clouds had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and the air had turned humid and seemed to ripple with intensity. Another storm was coming. Jane glanced at the watch hanging around her neck. The afternoon was getting on, and Edward had not returned from the house. She ran the back of her hand along her brow, which had begun to sweat in the heat.

"Your father certainly has been a long time, hasn't he?" Jane murmured, more to herself than to Adam, who knelt on the grass happily beating her paintbrushes together by their handles, as if they were drumsticks.

"Gently, my love!" she reprimanded, but Adam was too engaged to heed. "Here, give them to Mother. There's a boy." She gathered her materials together, then looked from her easel, where her work was still drying, to her son. She decided to ask Mary to help her bring everything in after she'd taken Adam inside.

"Come, let's go and see what mischief Papa has got himself into."

One of the most liberating things of being mistress of a household was that she could enter and leave any way she chose, without being thought a sneak or provoking servants' gossip. Mary and John were quite used to her presence in the kitchen and thought nothing of her using that door as easily as the one at the front of the house. Through this portal, then, she and Adam entered quite freely, and, finding the room empty, they paused for a moment as Jane crouched to examine the grass stains on the knees of the boy's breeches.

"Look at that, you careless fellow!" she teased. "That's what comes of crawling after Pilot. And Mary just washed these yesterday." She shook her head in mock hopelessness and tut-tutted, drawing a sheepish grin from Adam. But his amusement sank to an expression of disturbance as the sound of voices – raised, angry voices – reached them from the foyer. Jane turned and listened carefully. She was quickly able to make out Edward's tones, but the others – also a man's – were too low to be recognizable, and it was impossible to distinguish what was passing between them. Though she knew nothing of their conversation, Jane felt her blood run cold. She had detected something cold and hostile, something alien in her husband's voice. She shivered, and her mind traveled back again to the previous fortnight, to the black figure she'd glimpsed among the grave stones. When she spoke her own voice was low and coldly determined.

"Adam, hold tight to me."

Leaden with dread, she left the kitchen with her son in her arms and headed for the foyer. In the hall she stopped, her steps halted by the now clearly audible tones of the other man. She felt frozen. Shock reverberated though her body, an awful thrill dancing along every nerve. She knew that voice. It had been years, but she would have known his voice anywhere. Had she not heard it, again and again, pronouncing its terrible words, in the darkest of her dreams?

_She is living at Thornfield Hall… I am her brother._

Clutching her son close to her, she closed her eyes and summoned all her strength.

Mason, around the corner in the foyer, seemed to have lost his. Silence held the room in thrall for several agonizing moments, until he at last managed,

"My God, Rochester!" There was both fear and revulsion in his faint exclamation. Jane could only guess that he was looking upon his former brother-in-law in full for the first time. Edward laughed – a bitter, mirthless sound that she'd hoped never to hear again. When he spoke his voice was like ice.

"Why have you come? Was it to catch a glimpse of me?" The laugh again.

Jane winced, and felt tears rush to her eyes. Adam was trembling against her, his head on her shoulder.

"Was it to see this?" Edward was demanding. "Or this?" The hall was dark, but in the foyer a lamp had been lit, and Jane noticed now that she could see the men's shadows on the wall behind her, like figures in a magic lantern show. Her husband's form was distorted and monstrous, Mason's smaller and sharper, but no less ghastly. As Edward spoke, it seemed to cower before him. Jane held her breath as the shadow hand of her husband gestured to his left eye, as the handless left arm was held out to his visitor.

"No, no, please-" Mason began hoarsely, but whether his feeble protest was directed at Rochester's display of his disfigurements or at his equally formidable anger, Jane could not tell. Edward quickly cut him off.

"You see now how things are with me. Are you satisfied?"

"Rochester-"

"Was one time not enough? Tell me, was it not enough that you killed my chance of happiness once?"

"Please, understand-" Mason was pleading now, but Edward's temper had reached fever pitch and would not be held off.

"You had your victory, Mason! You took everything I had left. What more do you want of me?"

Suddenly Jane did not know whose desperation was greater, whose fear more consuming. She watched her husband's shadow, dreading what she might see it do yet unable to look away. _It has found us_, she thought, rocking Adam who had begun weeping silently, terrified at his father's rage. _Last fortnight was but a warning for this. It has found us now._

The silence was palpable. Then, in tones fortified by renewed confidence, Mason said with as much dignity as he could muster,

"I want to see my sister, Edward."


	2. Part 2: The Edge of the Crater

A soul-shattering crack of thunder rent the air, making them all start, and the accompanying flash of lightning illuminated them: their ghostly-white faces captured in contortions of fear. The storm had begun in earnest. Rain beat down upon the house in torrents, like the fulfillment of some meteorological vendetta, but nothing – not the ear-splitting clamors and peals of the tempest, nor the specter-like appearance of Mason's face before him – could surpass the tumult Edward felt inside him. His mind reeled. Fate reached out to claim him and he was plunged into his nightmare in full consciousness – the nightmare that even five years of marriage to Jane had not yet dispelled.

"She's not here, Richard." His voice was hollow; he sounded unconvincing even to himself. "You cannot see her."

_It always began the same way, with three low knocks on the door that echoed ominously, reverberating through the house. And it was always he who opened it – never John or Mary – as though he alone had heard the summons and knew instinctively they were for him._

"Where is she? What have you done with her?"

_The surprise was always the same, too – coming face to face with an oddly faceless stranger, the shock of the man's communication never diminished despite the dream's frequent recurrence: Bertha Mason was still living, and the law had come to collect him at last. He was to be imprisoned for bigamy._

"Done?" he echoed stupidly. "Done? I've done nothing. She did for herself." In his mind's eye he could still see the hapless form of his first wife, splayed gruesomely on the paving stones, eradicated from the world of the living – and from his own pointless existence – in an instant.

_The worst part of the dream – worse than his own fate as a condemned man, than the dank, despair-infested cell that awaited him – was the glimpse of Jane's face at the end. The mingled agony and betrayal in her eyes, the tears of hatred that streamed from them, and the terrible silence with which she turned her back and walked away from him, her love extinguished in a heartbeat. _

Numbly, he watched as Mason turned white, doubt and fear creeping in like a disease.

_It finished much like it began. Someone, or something, was knocking, a strangely loud sound in a world that had suddenly gone silent. Gradually, he realized that he was hearing the pulsing of his own heart, and that slowly, little by little, it was slowing. Soon it would stop. The dream ended with the faceless man of the law reaching out to drag him from the house, fingers outstretched like claws. And in the instant before that hand seized hold of him, Edward, standing on the threshold of the house, understood he was dead._

An audible, childish whimper, a miraculous sound in the tomblike foyer, reached them. Edward surfaced with a gasp.

"Jane!"

She had emerged from the corridor, a bright vision amid the darkness that had shrouded him. In her arms she held their son.

Adam was crying, clinging to Jane, his little body shaking with fright and alarm. Edward looked at them – his little family that he had thought to keep so safe, so untainted by his former life – then at Mason, who had been complicit in all that he despised about his past, about himself. In Mason's hated presence they seemed more pure and more vulnerable than ever: a glass ball tossed into the air, hovering for a moment at that perfect, parabolic pinnacle. If he did nothing, it would plummet and shatter.

The anger came from deep within him. "Get upstairs! Get away from here, I don't want you here - go!"

Surprise lightened Jane's eyes, which widened at him, but offered no challenge. Without a word, she turned from him and was gone.

Mason stared after her, frowning, his head cocked slightly to one side. "That girl! I remember that girl. She is… your mistress?"

"No, Richard, she is my wife."

Mason gaped at him. "You lie!" he gasped.

"I have been married to Jane five years – we are bound in the eyes of God and the law."

Mason was silent. He stared, fish-mouthed, at Edward, confusion momentarily rendering him mute.

"The charade is over, Dick. You nearly had me for a moment, but I've rallied, and I'll see you damned yet. What do you mean by coming here with the demands of a madman, disturbing my household, frightening my wife and child?" His tone was low and deadly. Anyone with sense would have recognized the imminent danger latent in his voice, but Mason was beyond reason. He began to back away slowly.

"You've finally done it!" His voice trembled, but his eyes blazed with conviction. "You've killed my sister, haven't you? I always knew you would!" He seized his hair in the anguished, deranged manner of one driven to frenzy by his own mistaken conclusions.

"Your sister killed herself. It was the only sane thing she ever did."

Mason shook from head to toe, but there was no tremulousness in his words.

"Curse you, Rochester! Curse you!"

Edward's heart pounded wildly, like a thing independent of the rest of him. His body felt like stone. It took every ounce of will he possessed to face his former brother-in-law, now backed against the wall, with an unfazed, icy countenance.

"You disgust me," he sneered. His single, flashing eye fixed him with a stare that bespoke murder. "Get out of my house."

Moving like an automaton, he went to the bell-pull and tugged it vigorously. When John appeared from the kitchen, he said in a soulless voice,

"See this gentleman out. If he shows his face again, you have my permission to shoot him."

And without bothering to look at Mason, Edward left the room.

Upstairs, Jane was leaving the nursery, having seen Adam calmed and settled down in the care of his nurse reading a picture book. She stopped outside in the hall, listening to the muffled sounds of her son's childish prattle, one hand pressed over her heart as though she could slow its frantic thuds, quell the sinking sensation in her stomach. All she could think of was Edward – the sight of his face in the hallway, livid with fury, but somehow empty, as though he had lost the essence of himself. Biting her lip against the welling anxiety within her, Jane absently lifted a finger to smooth back her hair, only then realizing that at some point in the chaos the fairy flower had fallen out of the braid in which she'd secured it. Though she could not herself have explained why, this upset her beyond reason and after scouring the floor all along the passage with her eyes for several minutes in vain, she fell to her knees and cried as if her heart would break.

Sometime later, she raised her head, gathered herself up, and crept to her chamber to bathe her face. In the water of the basin, still half-full, her ring glittered on her finger: a lifetime's love in one small band. For a moment she allowed herself to watch it, turning it this way and that in the watery light, until the clamor of the wind rattling a window drew her back. She glanced in the mirror and was satisfied that she'd succeeded in washing the tears away. Feeling refreshed, she decided to go in search of her husband. If he could not save himself, she would. If he greeted her with anger, she would stand her ground. She did not fear him. With this resolve, she quitted the chamber.

Jane had no sooner reached the kitchen by the back stairs than Mary bustled over to her, wringing her hands.

"Madam! Thank heavens!"

"What is it, Mary? What is wrong?"

"Master has ordered John to turn Mr. Mason from the house and has gone upstairs, but Mr. Mason is still within, wailing and making terrible threats, Madam! He and Master quarreled something terrible, and now he's saying he'll have lawyers to come a-calling and haul Master off to the gaol, and my John declares he does not know what to do! He does not dare send Mr. Mason away, but he is afraid to disobey Master..."

Mary spoke very hurriedly and in great distress, her chin quivering with worry. Though the communication alarmed her, Jane forced herself to behave with composure.

"Where is Mr. Mason now, Mary? Perhaps I can calm him."

"Oh, I wish you would try, Madam! I believe he is still in the foyer."

"Thank you. I will go and speak with him directly. Tell John not to worry, all will be well."

Edward paced the library, stopping from time to time to look out the window at the storm. Their blissful tea in the garden that afternoon seemed an age ago, a time out of keeping with the chaos that his life had suddenly become. He wished he had never left Jane and Adam there, wished he had never insisted on going in alone. He could scarcely recall now what had been his purpose. Ah yes, the handkerchief for Jane. She had been feeling unwell. That sensitive, attentive gesture was all but blotted out, now, by his cruelty to her in the foyer. He had ordered her to leave, but the truth was he knew he could never survive this alone. The upheaval of Mason's arrival had all but unmanned him. He needed Jane more than ever.

_Then find her, you fool._

He burst from the library with energy born of the single-minded nature of his purpose. He went upstairs, searched the passage, their chamber, the nursery (where Adam was napping, his trauma forgotten). No sign of her. Where had she gone? The vision of her face in his dream flickered a moment before him. He shook it away with a shake of his head. No, she would not truly leave him.

He returned downstairs, and it was there that he saw her, slipping out from the drawing room. His darling.

"Jane!" For the second time that day he spoke her name in surprise, as though the visible proof of her presence in his life was a near miracle. This time, though, he felt dizzy with gratitude toward her for simply _being_; gratitude and remorse at having spoken so harshly earlier – the first sharp words to her that had passed his lips since their wedding.

He went over and immediately flung his arms around her, holding her like a lifeline.

She accepted the apology of his embrace as he gave it – without words. But, when at last they drew apart, he seemed unable to meet her gaze.

"He has found us; hunted us and now found us. How can he have found us?" Edward addressed the question to the void, his good eye scanning the wall opposite as if it might find the answer etched there. A poisoned, sardonic smile twisted his face.

"And I, like a fool, thought myself safe here – thought us all safe here."

"Ferndean is not the end of the world, Darling, but we are as safe here as anywhere." Her words came out calmly, reasonably, trying to penetrate his frantic fear with sense, yet as she spoke the dark, column-like figure flashed again before her eyes, its ever-increasing recurrence in her thoughts dulling its power to shock her. She added softly, "It was bound to happen, that is all."

"What can we do? _What can we do?_"

"Edward." Jane took his face in her hands. It was bloodless, yet his skin burned as though with fever, and she could feel his entire body trembling. "Edward, look at me."

He obeyed, helpless, a man overcome.

"Mr. Mason has found us, yes. But he has not hunted us, and he will not claim either of us. We are not his to possess."

"You don't know Mason."

"I know he is a weak man. I know he follows where he is lead. You must lead him again. You must lay this to rest."

"How can I? He has taken leave of his senses – I fear the affliction of his family has claimed him at last. He ranted as though he had believed _her_ to be alive."

"I think," Jane said very quietly, "that until today, he had."

"How can that be? Surely that is madness." But then, Edward saw how it could have been – how it must have been.

"He never received the letter… did he?" Jane shook her head.

"You do see, don't you – that you must explain it all? You must tell him everything. Then he will understand that there is nothing left for him here."

"I told John to see him out, and not to let him return."

"I know," Jane said gently, "but I asked him to stay. He is in the drawing room now, and is a great deal calmer." She touched Edward's arm. "Don't be cross with me."

"No, you acted as you should have – as I ought to have." He raked his fingers through his hair and attempted a smile. It was a weary, resigned expression, but a far cry from the horrid grimace that earlier had so distorted his beloved face.

"Go and speak with him," Jane said. "Let it end."

Edward sighed. All the nervous energy had left him, and taken his strength with it. Without saying more, she took his hand.

They went to the drawing room together, pausing instinctively outside the door, each turning to look into the other's face.

"I said to you once that my life was uncertain, did I not?" Edward began, as if in atonement for all that had been, and for the confrontation that would soon follow.

"Don't say that, Darling."

"You are the only thing that makes sense," he murmured, staring at the door, the final barrier. "Don't leave me, Jane."

She squeezed his hand. "I'll be right behind you."

He loosed his fingers from hers to reach for the handle. Grasping it tightly, he wrenched open the door in one swift, determined motion, and strode through to face his past.


	3. Part 3: Embers

Jane had spoken the truth when she told him Mason was calmer. He was sitting on the sofa, quite still, when Edward entered the room, turning his head toward him in greeting – not in the quick, birdlike movements of before, but smoothly, and without any trace of surprise or fear. It seemed impossible, miraculous, this calm, until Edward saw what Jane had neglected to mention – in his hand, Mason held an empty glass and beside him on the side table stood the brandy decanter, its contents considerably depleted. Edward bit the insides of his cheeks but was unable to hold back the smile, envisioning Jane playing the hospitable mistress of the house, plying their distressed visitor with liquor until all animosity – perhaps even all lucidity – was gone.

He went forward to the chair opposite Mason, who had attempted to rise at his entrance until Edward stopped him with a wave of his hand. Edward seated himself, then turned to Jane, signaling her with a glance to assume the seat beside him. Instantly she was there.

"Rochester, Madam –" Mason began, addressing them in his accustomed, unobtrusive tone, "Please accept my sincerest…"

"That's enough, Richard," Edward cut in, with only the slightest hint of brusqueness. He was in no mood to endure a long-winded apology, if only because it would make his own behavior the more inexcusable.

"We have both acted wrongly, and no doubt have vastly mistaken each other's intentions. Let us accept what has passed between us and say no more about it. Surely we can sit now and converse as civilized men."

"Yes, yes, certainly," Mason said hurriedly, clearly relieved that there would be no lingering on their earlier confrontation. "Thank you," he added.

"It is not I who merits your thanks," Edward replied levelly. "Thank my wife. She alone was able to keep her head in all of this." Jane put her hand over his and he turned his hand over on his lap to twine his fingers through hers. How lost he would be, without her!

Mason nodded gratefully to Jane, who acknowledged him with a smile. Neither spoke.

"I will venture now to say that I believe I understand – properly – your reason for coming here, Mason. I cannot think what trouble you must have gone to, to find me here, but I expect you have seen, or at least heard, what became of Thornfield…"

Mason nodded again, but made no effort toward speech.

"You were meant," Rochester said – with a sigh that suggested better than his tight grasp on Jane's hand, how wearisome and difficult he found this talk – "to have received a letter. I cannot swear as to the specific date or location of its mailing, and I cannot swear as to its precise wording. At the time I was… indisposed. My lawyer performed the transaction after my direction. The letter was meant to have explained everything."

"I received nothing."

"I know."

"How did B-" Mason seemed unable to speak her name. He took a shaky breath. "How did she die?"

And so it all came out, Mason sitting tensely, eyes on his lap, as Rochester told him in low, would-be matter-of-fact tones (whose very steadiness – an unnatural calm born of sheer force of will – betrayed vulnerability) the story of Jane's departure, the fire, his sister's plunge into death, and Rochester's own injuries. He skipped coolly over the agonizing year of loneliness and despair to Jane's return to him, and their succeeding marriage.

"I regained my sight, three summers ago now, and the house has undergone some renovation, but otherwise all is as you see it."

"And the little child I saw earlier," Mason said, speaking up at last, "it must be yours also?"

"Yes; mine and Jane's. Our son, Adam. One day all that is ours will be his."

Mason nodded slowly and said, half to himself, "That is good. That is right." His gaze returned to his former brother-in-law and he added, more loudly,

"You seem happy, Rochester. I am glad for you."

"Thank you. These five years have been the most joyous of my life."

The evening wore on, and Edward found himself bidding Mason to stay and dine with them, and then, when the dark crept in through the windows and he realized it was at least a two-hour drive to the nearest inn, bidding him stay the night. As he spoke the invitation, a part of him registered surprise at his own magnanimity, but perhaps that was merely a result of the strange detachment he'd felt all through the evening, ever since his talk in the corridor with Jane. It was as though he was watching the proceedings from somewhere else – that everything was happening to another man, another version of himself. _His_ life – the life he shared with Jane and Adam – was continuing elsewhere, quite untouched, while this peculiar tableau was but a wayward shoot that had suddenly grown away from the core.

Jane excused herself shortly after darkness fell, but the two men sat talking late into the night, and when Edward at last retired to bed the house was soundless as a church. He entered the chamber where he saw, before snuffing out the light, Jane's figure lying still in the bed. Taking care not to wake her, he undressed silently in the dark, having learned, in his years of blindness, to do so with considerable ease, and after quickly cleaning his teeth he crawled into bed beside her. As he sank back upon the pillow and closed his eyes, he felt a small warm hand touch his arm beneath the covers.

"My darling, you are awake?"

"Yes. I thought to wait up for you."

"I am sorry to have been so long. Mason was eager to converse and I decided not to begrudge him that pleasure. It seems he is now in charge of the family plantation in Spanish Town now, and he told me he's lately taken a wife, if you can believe it. I confess I would not have supposed him capable of handling such responsibility."

"Responsibility of managing the plantation, or managing his wife?" Jane asked impishly.

"Both, actually," Edward replied, grinning, tension lifting for one blessed moment with that fleeting expression of levity.

"Mr. Mason must be lonely for them."

"Yes, he seemed anxious to return to them."

"How long is he to stay, Darling?"

"Only this night. His ship leaves England in a week's time, and he still has business to transact in London."

"I know how difficult it must have been for you, but I am glad you invited him to remain here. It was a very generous thing to do. And after the morning you need never see him again."

"Jane –"

"Yes?"

"There's another thing." He put his hand over hers, where it lay curled beside her face on the pillow, then after a few moments he moved it away. "I made a promise to Mason. I said I'd go with him to Thornfield churchyard tomorrow. He wishes to see her grave, and I… I'd rather he not be there alone."

She was silent a moment. Then slowly, she sought his hand with hers. They lay, face to face on the pillow, hands entwined, a barrier against the world.

"I will go with you, if you will let me," she said softly.

"Let you?" he murmured. "How could I deny you? But is it truly your wish – to come and stand at _that place_? Are you sure you do not ask too much of yourself?

"I am sure."

"You know I could never ask it of you, but I should welcome your company. Aye, and bless you for it. But why? Why subject yourself?"

"I would rather you not be there alone."

"What have I done," he asked, "to deserve you?"

And she answered simply,

"Loved me."

Sometime in the night, Edward woke and knew immediately Jane wasn't beside him. The storm had not abated and the room was darker than pitch, but a distant rumble and a flash of lightning showed him Jane, standing by the window, her back to him.

"Jane?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I did not mean to wake you." She spoke without turning.

"You didn't." _It was your absence that did._

"How hard the rain falls – as if Jupiter were raging, meting out punishment to all of us below. Listen!" She spoke distantly, as though in a trance, sounding so unlike herself that he shivered.

"Are you quite alright, Darling?"

"Yes."

He became aware that she was crying. How he knew, he could not have explained, for it was too dark to see anything of her beyond her silhouette, and the words she'd spoken to him had been too soft to betray tears. But Edward knew that at this moment, they were streaming from her eyes, falling soundlessly to the floor, and that for this reason alone she had not turned to him. He rose and went to her and taking her gently by the shoulders, made her face him. His eye was weak, and there was so little light to see by, but he took his hand and held it gently to her cold cheek. She took a shuddering breath and closed her eyes. Her lashes were wet.

"What is it, my dear? Is it Mason?"

"No." He heard the tears now, making her sweet voice low and husky, the sobs building up in her throat. "I cannot," she said. "You will think me so foolish…" Shaking her head, she hid her eyes against his shoulder and soon he felt the damp seeping through his nightshirt.

"Jane, Jane," he murmured. "Will you not let me in?"

And the tenderness with which the plea was spoken, not to mention the chastisement that her conscience took from it - that she was shutting him out by denying him her confidence - broke down the last stronghold of her pride. She trembled against him as he led her back to the bed and they sat together on the edge, Jane gathered up to him, and then she was telling him everything: of what – of who – she had seen in Brocklebridge churchyard that afternoon two weeks ago, when, kneeling beside the newly erected headstone for Helen, the very demon whose negligence and cruelty had sent her friend and so many other girls beneath the earth, had appeared in the shadow of the church. That black pillar of a man, who had first brought her so much despair, and so much vengeful anger, had stood only feet away, beneath a low, crooked tree, like some horrific specter that materialized just when the heart was most vulnerable, when the soul was laid bare. She had come to honor Helen, to share with her husband this severe but influential place, to open another part of her life to him as if in the hope that, by him knowing everything about her, they might defy the duality of their separate selves and become one consciousness. Brocklehurst's arrival – and the knowledge that he yet lived, yet inhaled the breath of life, when Helen had relinquished it 15 years before – had nearly undone her.

She ought not to have felt so vulnerable in his presence. She was no longer a friendless, impressionable girl, but a married woman of 24. Her husband was beside her; her beloved, devoted husband who respected and trusted and adored her as no other human being on earth was adored. She ought not to have been so frightened. But at the sight of her old enemy, all the old dread, the old sense of injustice and revulsion flowed through her like a red river of hate. And when he turned to her (though he stood at a distance she could see his keen eyes examining her, see the tightening in his frame as recognition struck) she could do nothing but gaze helplessly up at Edward's face and shamelessly willed the universe to contract around him, so that, for her, he would be all that existed.

She should not have thought or cared about what had run through Brocklehurst's head when he saw her that afternoon among the stones. He was not worthy of her concern. He had proven his contemptibility through his actions. Though she'd been only a child, and suffered with a child's indignity, she had been in the right, and she felt her sense of right still. Yet he had held the power of her fate in his hands, once. He had been master over her as surely as man was master over ants, or a captain over his crew. And anyone who has thus belonged to another is never truly rid of the fear that someday, somehow, they will be claimed again.

"And does he frighten you still, after all that has passed?"

"I told you that you would think me foolish," she said in place of apology.

"Foolish?" he echoed, holding her back to seek her eyes with his own. "Jane, look at me." There was so little light, and so much sorrow in her small frame, and he was only one man to stand against it. But he fought it all the same, with all the gentleness in his heart. "If I truly thought that, it would be I who was the greater fool."

For had she not seen him brought to helplessness by his own demon that very day, despite all that had passed, despite the knowledge that _he_ had been the victim, that _he_ had been in the right, and had Right on his side, still?

"Were you then thinking of him, all the time I was with Mason?"

She nodded.

"Why did you not tell me sooner?" He asked, regret tainting his perfect hindsight. "I might have comforted you. And instead I shouted at you…"

"Darling, don't!" She spoke urgently, despite her tears. "You mustn't talk so, or think so. If we mistrust ourselves, if we allow regret…"

_That would only let the demons in._ He nodded. "I know, I know." Edward cradled her closer. She was so dear to him: so infinitely, almost unbearably dear. For him her pain was like daggers.

"I spoke of this danger to you once before – do you remember? I said to you that it is as though I stand at the edge of a precipice, or something of the sort, and may at any moment plunge into the abyss."

"Edward, please –"

"Well, my life has changed since the morning I spoke those words. The cliff-face is less steep now, perhaps. But I feel a part of me stands there still, Jane. And now – oh, my darling! – now I have bound you in this also. I dread the day when I may slip… and pull us both down."

There was so much she wanted to say, so much consolation she wanted to give him, but the words rang false in her ears. She thought of Brocklebridge churchyard again, how it had encroached upon her every day for the past fortnight, sucking the joy from her waking hours, muting the voices of her husband and son. And she thought of the petty idea that had woken her, driven her to the window and started the tears: her easel, abandoned and forgotten in the garden in the wake of Mason's arrival, and upon it her sketchbook, now rain-soaked and ruined, filled with pictures of Edward and Adam, of Pilot, of their home, of all the things she cherished. The pictures were but pale shadows – echoes of the living forms – but she had created them, labored over them, and loved them, in her way. Now they were lost to her forever. And so, whether it was comfort or the giving of it that she herself needed, she held Edward even as he held her, and they both lay down upon the bed, pressing themselves together so closely that their faces touched on the pillow and their arms and legs tangled together under the sheets, and they fell asleep, having reached the place where words lost their meaning, clinging to each other.

Despite Edward's concern that the trip to Thornfield churchyard with Mason after such a troubled night would place too much of a burden on his wife's shoulders, Jane insisted on accompanying him. Shortly after breakfast, having kissed Adam goodbye with the instructions to mind his nurse well while they were gone, they and their visitor set off in the carriage. The journey was an uneventful one, the members of the party talking little, Edward and Jane wrapped up in their own thoughts, Mason bracing himself for the coming sorrow inherent to the graveside.

They had not notified their estate agent of their arrival, and so when they alighted from the carriage outside the solemn grounds, no one was there to meet them. They entered the sodden graveyard in silence, Edward leading Mason to the quiet, shady corner where his sister was buried, Jane hanging behind to traverse the rows of monuments alone.

Someday she and Edward would rest here, and Adam too, and if they were blessed again, other children and their children's descendents. She knew many would have considered such a thought morbid, but she felt a kind of comfort in knowing this, in knowing where her earthly life would end, and who she would have resting near her. As she walked, kneeling here and there to wipe moss from an inscription or clear away a fallen branch or twig, she felt peace settle over her – peace such as, she imagined, must exist at the bottom of the ocean, where the tumults that disturbed the surface could not reach. This last home, lying beside all those she loved, was inevitable: nothing – _nothing_ – could change it.

Mason wept at his sister's grave, kneeling in the carefully kept grass so that his trousers grew wet and muddy. He spoke no words of anger, or regret, or apology, but his tears – genuine and tender – stirred his brother-in-law strangely. Edward removed himself to a polite distance and sat upon a bench among the stone angels, dulled from the night's rain, and from hundreds of rains before. He watched Jane as she walked between the stones, the hem of her gown rustling on the wet grass, letting the image and thought of her fill him up, claiming his entire consciousness, until Mason came up to him, pale and red-eyed, and said he was ready to leave.

The two men shook hands outside the cemetery, just as the last clouds were clearing in the sky. Mason would walk the distance to the village inn to 'recover his spirits' and from there take the coach to London. He told them the name of the hotel where he would be staying, and also the name of his ship, but he and Rochester both knew it was merely a politeness. There was little reason for any further contact between them. Edward and Jane watched Mason's retreating figure until he disappeared behind a bend in the path. The sun reflected brightly on the watery fields and the old churchyard at their back, and left them squinting as they turned to one another.

"You shall not meet him again?" It was more a statement than a question, yet he answered it.

"No, I do not believe I ever shall."

"Then, are you free, Edward?"

"Free?" He smiled wanly. "Shall I ever be free of it all?"

"Yes, Darling," she whispered fiercely. "Someday you shall be." He took her hand, unable, for the moment, to speak. He drew off the glove and twisted the ring around her finger, seeing it flash in the dappled light.

"I'd like to believe that," he murmured.

They began to walk slowly toward the carriage, arms around one another. It was almost impossible for Edward to imagine his life returning to how it had been yesterday, before Mason's arrival. It seemed beyond comprehension that all could right itself, as if the past's painful intrusion had left no rift.

"Edward," Jane began, "I've been thinking. Perhaps these demons – these fragments of our pasts – perhaps they have visited us for a reason. Perhaps it is best that we not seek to shake them off, but let them burn on. It has been painful, for both of us, but I believe they are necessary fragments; they are inherently part of us."

"Would that they were not!" He returned. "Would that I could cut them away, like so much burned flesh."

"No, no, you mustn't wish that."

"How can I not? How can I willingly preserve these ghastly embers, when they might flare up at any moment? How can I endanger you, and Adam… Adam, who has known nothing of any of this?"

Jane thought of his sharp command the day before, by the stairs, when he'd ordered her and their son away. She thought of his livid face, and then of Mason, standing so close behind him. _He wanted to protect us. He hid us from Mason out of love. _

"I thought - I prayed - to have shaken off the past once and for all. The worst thing I can imagine is for it to haunt us all… and now I begin to fear I shall never be rid of it." He shook his head and looked to the ground. "Perhaps that is to be my one torment."

She held his arm closer and spoke softly in his ear: "Please don't talk of torment, Darling. I cannot bear for you to talk so. We will both be very careful. We will keep Adam safe for as long as we can, and trust to God to spare him from the troubles we have known. But I cannot wholly wish all my past unhappiness away. I confess my mind yet shrinks at the memory of Brocklehurst, desecrating Helen's place with his presence, but Edward, had I not known that man's condemnation, and never been driven to prove him wrong, I might never have become myself. I might have known you, but I might not have been ready to love you. I cannot willingly bury that which allowed my heart to open to yours."

Edward was silent for a time, considering the arduous path his own heart had followed until it finally found Jane. He knew, and had known for some time, that he would not have been able to love her as a young man. He might have pitied her – her loss, her misfortunes – but his heart would not have opened to hers. It was, after all, pain, as well as love, that had eventually bound them together. His father and brother and Mason and his family – their betrayal, and all the grief it had brought him – had indeed shaped his heart, as well as wounded it. And, he realized, if he desired to cut the fragments of that betrayal out of himself, he would be cutting away the part of him that had brought him to Jane.

He was silent still as they climbed into the carriage and started back toward Ferndean. Jane sat with her hand in his and closed her eyes, feeling the hard-earned sunlight on her face. When Edward began at last to talk, his voice was so soft it seemed more the voice of his thoughts than actual spoken words.

"When we arrive home, it will be dark." Jane opened her eyes and looked at him, following his gaze to where it rested on their clasped hands. She smiled, and leaned against him. "It will be dark," he continued, "but John and Mary will be expecting us, and have lit lamps in all the windows. Adam will have stayed up past his bedtime to see us, and he will be yawning frightfully and will cling to you, Darling, as he did when he was a baby. When he is settled, you and I will go to our chamber, and Mary will have the bathwater hot and ready. And afterwards the sheets will be cool and soft, and I'll hold you to me, much like this, much like I do now. And the darkness will not be too, too great. And… yes, Jane, I believe, perhaps, _someday_…"

"Yes," she echoed. "_Someday_…"


End file.
